In profound spiritual poetry, Rumi (a 13th century poet who is still a top-seller in the U.S.) brilliantly blended together material and intangible worlds in expressions that resonate with many of us.

His poetry in particular speaks to our own brilliant center of creation and radiance, regardless of our individual religious affiliation or non-affiliation.

His poetry inspires us to view our world from another perspective. It gives us pause and allows us to access the depth of our inner world and divinity.

Heart-Centered-Strategy is a reflection of the balance between the spiritual and material; accessing the spiritual is a practice to remind us to stop and view all of our business actions from an inner, meditative vision. More about heart-centered-strategy

“Rumi’s place in the history of religions is as a bridge-between-faiths. The story of his funeral in 1273 is well known. Representatives came from every religion -Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus. When questioned about this, they responded, “He deepens us wherever we are.” Rumi lives in the heart, the core (he might call it friendship) of our impulse to praise, to worship, to explore the mystery of union. Even his name is a bridge word.” Coleman Barks~ Rumi: Bridge to the Soul: Journeys into the Music and Silence of the Heart, HarperCollins, 2007.

Beautiful video by Four Seasons Productions ~ Rumi Poem “Only Breath” (Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen not any religion……)

Here is a practical approach to developing a Social Media Strategy for your business:

#1 Understand the Water you are Putting your Toes Into Set up and start working the basics: Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn. Get comfortable, play with your style and core message. Understand and resist the embedded bias in the technologies you are utilizing. Don’t let the water overwhelm you.

#2 Create a Digital Rolodex of Connections When social media is done correctly, relationships will build naturally. Make sure you have an email gathering function working immediately. These are your future customers. Your opportunity to create intimacy begins immediately. When you are ready to offer something to your connections, your rolodex will be flush. Begin by inviting people you know, then follow people who interest you. Follow conversations, subscribe to blogs that interest you. Make a list of influencers relevant to your business and connect with them on FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

#3 Occasionally Educate about your Products and/or Services Yes, occasionally. You don’t want to come across like you are all about promoting yourself. Do start to establish yourself as the go-to in relation to your particular product and/or service by educating. Exhibit that you deserve respect –a necessary ingredient for crossing the boundary between being just a commodity to a valued relationship. Be willing to be educated and share what you learn and who you learned it from. Make sure that links to your website or blog have good information on them so people who want to know more can easily get info.

#4 Create a Game to Play Efficiently systematize how much time and energy you will put into your SM and then have fun with it! Be entertaining AND establish mystery –tell great stories, tap into peoples dreams. Do status updates and tweets based on the image you are holding. This is where you are starting to create leverage with your Social Media.

#5 Hone your ImageWhat is your platform? Now that you have had a little time to play, seriously review your image –what exactly do you want to project about you and your business? Make sure there is CONSISTENCY regarding your formats — begin to establish your brand. Review your basics: Do you need to add any portals? Delete some? Figure out distinctions between personal and biz for both Twitter and Facebook – do you need both? Does it make sense for you to start a group?

#6 Analyze, Adapt, and Improve Metrics You should be able to measure your success. Measures will tie into the goals and objectives of your strategy (more on this at Social Media Examiner).

#7 Focus on Community Radiate love in every Social Media action. Move your brand into the zone of inspiration. Create profound connections between others.

When I read Ruby’s Eye of the Beholder post, it reminded me of Joan of Arc who acted in accordance with her spiritual vision and led the French to many victories against the occupying English. If she had only reacted to the material world, she would have known that a 16 year old girl could not influence the course of history. Instead she acted upon the Divine Guidance of her spiritual vision and created a monumental change in the physical world ~ Carol Denson

Find the real world, give it endlessly awayGrow rich, fling gold to all who askLive at the empty heart of ParadoxI’ll dance there with you, cheek to cheekYour Dawn in me I’m drunk, stammeringA thousand thousand words go darkLightnings are dark to us to this:Identity’s boundless worlds-wide blaze.Why Rumi?

The pic is a photograph of a sculpture made from circuit boards, glue, and paint titled “Lofty” by Bexar Oliver. My husband and I have commissioned Bexar to do a small sculpture for us –we choose what old electronics to give him and he creates an integrated piece –cool!

!! UPDATE !!

Bexar’s work, “Lofty” pictured here, has been selected as one of three Houston Arts Month Finalists!! The winner of the Houston Arts Month contest will be featured on the cover of the Official Houston Visitors Guide and a regional newspaper insert distributed to 1 million households.

You can vote for Bexar to win by clicking the link below. Be sure and hit the submit button!!

I have been interested in Carl Jung’s work for a long time. Like many of us, I was introduced to his work in college, but not at any particular depth (given that my major was accounting; no surprise). Over the years, his work has crossed my radar-screen here and there (given my interest in business & spirituality; no surprise).

Soon I am going to start working with a Jungian Therapist, so I decided it was time to learn more about Jung. I picked up a biography (by Claire Dunne with a forward by Jean Houston) and read in the prelude:

Jung’s work teaches:

– Man needs to become his complete self to live whole.

– God needs man to mirror his creation and help it evolve.

– The whole human being is open to God as co-creator.

I was astounded….these are the seeds of the foundation of the Strategy Stream Program. I could not, of course, put it so elegantly or succiently, and it is way to lofty to say that the program delivers anything but an aspiration of seeds. I rarely use the word God, yet….these are the seeds:

– In order to have your business be whole, you must be whole.

– Your business is a gift (from God), caring for and evolving it is your gift back.

– From the whole and complete foundation of your business, you easily access “God” as your co-creative partner.

When you deliver a product or service, you are participating in a shared reality that exists between you and your customers. There is an intimate agreement about the shared reality. There is trust and communication about the mutual benefits of your interchange. This is communion; a sharing of spirit.

Within the space of communion, there is a natural evolution that is set in motion. It is a given that this evolution is a growth process for both you and your customers. Consider approaching the development and delivery of your products and services with a conscious commitment to evoke evolution and transformation.

Any evolution is a process; a growth pattern. You set the evolution in motion by fulfilling a specific need or desire for your customer. From that point forward, you are in a unique position to evoke evolution. When you evoke, you go beyond simply participating in the reality between you and your customer, to deeply influencing (impressing) upon the reality.

In order to evoke vs. participate, add an element to each and every one of your products & services that meets not only the immediate desire of your customer, but a “higher desire” as well. Always reflect back to your customer a vision of their highest self. For example, if you are selling “A” laptops, delivering it with the clear message that your customer has everything to do with why this laptop is so fantastic, meets a higher-desire recognition that “A” laptop users are smart and savvy. When your “A” laptop customer configures their laptop, invite them to join an on-line community of smart and savvy “A” laptop users. These higher desire attributes impress upon the growth pattern of evolution –deepening the relationship with your customer, as well as evoking qualities of co-creation, self-esteem and community.

Think of your products & services as an invitation to an intimate interchange with your customer vs. an exchange –this is the access to communion. An interchange is spirit-to-spirit vs. an ego-to-ego exchange. If you choose to hold and maintain the interchange of communion with sacred gloves, you impress upon the evolution implicit in communion. Impressing with loving consciousness is the opportunity to influence the highest evolution for business, the planet, and humanity.

Originally posted 8/2009 ~In order to heal, Shamans routinely permeate boundaries; boundaries of mind and body, boundaries between consciousness and sub-consciousness, space and time, people and circumstances, humans and nature, and between matter and spirit.

Shamans show us that what we experience as our separate self is illusionary – they teach us to give birth to a truer sense of who we are and to recognize our connection to all things. When we recognize our interconnectedness, we make business decisions from a holistic vs a compartmentalized view.

On the world stage, we are going through a collective shamanic healing process, a genuine death/rebirth experience. As Paul Levy, writes “our species and its civilization are currently in the throes of a collective nervous breakdown. If what we as a species, are doing to ourselves (destroying the biosphere, the very life-support system of the planet, to use one example) isn’t collective madness, then what in the world is? Our underlying institutionalized and incorporated structures that are helping to keep us asleep are breaking down and coming apart. The false, illusory separate self, which experiences ourselves as alien from one another is dying as is the fundamental framework by which we relate to each other and the world. As we recreate ourselves we awaken to our deep interconnection and interdependence with each other and all living beings.”

Interconnection and interdependence awakening are transcendent boundary breakers. Recreating ourselves and redesigning business frameworks from this expanded space is exciting…..and challenging. Relying on our innate Shamanic abilities such as going within, deep listening and relying on intuition will assist us in meeting the challenge. As awakening evolves, we come to recognize that we are all Shamans sharing sacred space. (Edited post from August 2009)